


Lullaby

by gothicangeltas



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 22:16:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10580592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gothicangeltas/pseuds/gothicangeltas
Summary: When Edith left Allerdale Hall with Dr. Alan McMichael after the traumatic events that took place that winter's day, she didn't realize that someone else was leaving with her. Pregnant with Sir Thomas's child, Edith went back to New York and married Dr. Alan McMichael. Now, her son Thomas is a grown man and heading to Cumberland to take over the running of the Sharpe Mines.





	

Part One

The postal depot was a hive of activity; workers sorted out packages and envelopes of mail for the town and surrounding county. Phillip, one of the older porters, was checking through a list for a recent shipment for the Sharpe Mines when the main door opened, bringing with it a fresh burst of cool, Spring air. Phillip froze, unable to take his eyes off the man now shutting the door firmly behind him.

The stranger was tall, and he wore well his dark blue tailored suit over his lanky frame. He moved with a grace which Phillip had come to expect of the nobility. The stranger noticed Phillip’s attention and headed toward him, a ready smile on his face. Phillip could only stare. Aside from the sandy brown slightly curly hair, he was the spitting image of Sir Thomas Sharpe, right down to the sky-blue eyes. A chill slithered down Phillip’s spine that had nothing to do with the chilly Spring air. Sir Thomas had been dead these many years. Phillip opened his mouth to speak, but then the stranger was upon him.

“Good sir,” the stranger began, “I am Thomas…” Phillip blanched, and Thomas hurriedly continued, “McMichael…I am Thomas McMichael, but I have been told I bear a strong resemblance to my father, Sir Thomas Sharpe.”

“Your…father…” Phillip murmured as he thought back to being new to the position of shipping agent at the depot, and the young couple he had offered the room that had been downstairs. The bride, a beautiful young thing with blonde hair, had been most happy at the prospect. The next day, they had braved the snowy roads to travel back to Allerdale Hall. He remembered seeing the bride when next she’d visited the depot; both she and that blond doctor of hers had been in a bad way - ill and bleeding when they’d first arrived - and staying in town at least a fortnight before leaving for America.

Shaking himself from his reverie, Phillip found himself smiling back at the younger man. “You do look much like your father,” he said. “Gave me a bit of a fright.”

Thomas’s smile was sheepish. “I’m getting quite of bit of that since coming here, I’m afraid.”

Phillip introduced himself, adding, “I’ve met your mother a time or two over the years, and that blond doctor of hers, as well.” He smiled warmly at the young man.

Thomas grinned back, “Dr. Alan raised me.” The smile faltered a little. “Did…did you know Sir Thomas well?” Thomas asked. For the first time since walking through the door, he seemed uncertain.

Phillip smiled not unkindly into blue eyes that seemed far happier than his father’s had ever been and nodded. “I met him. He…” he paused, remembering the deaths of Sir Thomas and his sister, Lucille, and all of the rumors that flew of what had happened. But then he remembered the charming but sad smile of the young baronet; remembered, too, how kind Sir Thomas had been to those less fortunate in station than he…not nearly as arrogant as others he had met, including Lady Lucille. “He was a kind man, I believe,” Phillip finished finally. When Thomas’s brows pinched slightly, Phillip added, “It’s how a man treats others that shows his true nature.”

Thomas considered that and then nodded, the smile reappearing on his face. “Thank you for that. My mother has told me of him, and I have been made aware of…events…that took place before my birth.”

The door opened again with a fresh gust of Spring air, and two workmen came in, their boots coated red with dust from the mines. They spied Phillip standing there and headed toward him. “We heard the replacement parts are here,” the taller of the two said. “We’ve come to get ‘em.”

“Are you from the mines then?” Thomas asked.

The men turned to Thomas, clearly dismissive at first, but closer inspection drew them up short. The pair frowned at him. “And who might you be?” the taller of the two asked.

“Thomas McMichael,” he introduced himself, hand extended for a handshake.

The same one who had asked who he was took Thomas’s hand in his own, blinked as if in surprise, and shook his hand firmly. “Wallace Finley,” he introduced himself. “You’re the new lord of Allerdale Hall?”

It was Thomas’s turn to blink. “I suppose I am,” he said, and then giving himself a mental shake, he continued, “but I find myself more concerned with the mines. I was reading the reports, and it seems as if the diggings under the old Allerdale Hall have yielded new deposits?”

Finley tilted his dark head to the side, his eyes slightly narrowed as he looked at Thomas. “You know about mining?”

Thomas smiled slightly. “Only what I’ve read. My mother has books on the area that go back many years, detailing the history of the mine and this area. But, I am a bit of a… builder…a tinkerer.” He shrugged, adding with a laugh, “a family legacy, if you will.”

Finley nodded, “Aye, your father was a bit of a… tinkerer, as you say. We still use the machinery he designed long ago, but the newer deposits are too deep.”

“Perhaps they can be adapted to work at the deeper depths. Let me take a look…”

Phillip, having directed the other worker from the mines over to where their packages waited, watched Thomas McMichael lead Finley toward the door. He was reminded, again, of Sir Thomas Sharpe and his enthusiasm for the machine he’d designed that would revolutionize clay mining. And so it had. The mines provided a decent yield, and when that yield had started to falter or weather had caused issues, Edith McMichael had provided wages for the miners’ families until the mines were once more producing well.

Phillip watched as Finley and Thomas joined the other miner already loading the parts onto the old horse drawn wagon. Both miner workers seemed somewhat startled when Thomas tugged off his suit jacket and moved to lift one of the boxes. Finley had protested, but Thomas had waved him off, lifting the box easily before setting it onto the bed of the wagon. Phillip watched as the last of the boxes was lifted into the wagon bed, and the smaller of the two miners climbed up to lead the wagon home. Thomas retrieved his suit jacket, and he and Finley headed to the motorcar parked slightly off to the side. Phillip recognized it as the one left at the small house in town owned by the McMichaels for their infrequent visits; all of which had been without young Thomas. As the motorcar slowly trailed behind the wagon, Phillip wished the young man luck, and then he turned away from the window, heading back to work.

**_Sharpe Clay Mines_ **

_She watched the men unload the wagon. After the long winter, the mines had stood untouched and unopened, the ground too frozen to allow any digging. But now that the snows had cleared and the ground had begun to soften, the miners had been returning. Two of the men, she had noticed before, but the new one was…familiar. The hair was too light, but…that…face. It was_  him _! He had come back to her! She wouldn’t be alone any longer! It had never been good for her to be alone, and she had been alone for a very long time. She knew that it had been_  that woman  _who had had Allerdale Hall torn down, stripped down so nothing but the mines remained. Her things, her precious moths, all gone! The others left her, too. Her precious had been the first…then…Mother…Margaret…Pamela…Enola with the babe…all gone._

_Alone…alone…._

_But no longer. He had returned. And he would be with her again. She would make sure of that._

**_New Allerdale Hall_ **

Thomas tossed his jacket on the chair beside the bed and undid his tie, letting it drape loosely around his neck as he undid the first two buttons at his throat. He sighed, sitting heavily on the edge of the bed.  He toed off his shoes, the red clay dust coating the fine leather sprinkled off. He pulled off his socks, dropping them to the floor next to the shoes, and then he lay back on the bed, one arm draped over his eyes.

He didn’t know what he had been expecting in England, but nothing so far had been how he had thought it would be. He silently ticked them off. 

When he had shaken their hands, the men here had seemed surprised by the roughness of his hands. That had surprised him until he realized that, technically, he did have the title of baronet by birth, and the nobility, he was coming to realize, did very little work with their hands. He couldn’t imagine being any other way, though, and the thought of being idle while others did what he was capable of doing was abhorrent to him. His mother and father had been the same way.

He paused. Step-father, he mentally corrected, frowning. Alan McMichael was the only father he had ever known, despite knowing that the mysterious Sir Thomas Sharpe was his father by blood. Alan had been stern yet loving, teaching him, guiding him. Sir Thomas had only been a face in a daguerreotype. And now, thanks to that mysterious stranger, Thomas was a baronet and sole heir to the Sharpe and Cushing fortunes. His mother had had no other children after him. He’d overheard his aunt Eunice mention that his mother’s marriage to Sir Thomas had proved too much for her. His grandmother had replied, “It’s a miracle she had that boy.” 'That boy’ being himself. He’d very quietly gone up to his father and had asked him what his grandmother had meant. Alan’s blond brows had drawn down slightly, and his blue eyes were so sad that Thomas had regretted even asking. Alan’s hand had been warm and strong as it gripped his shoulder, and Thomas had taken comfort in the familiar gesture. Alan had then sat with him, and _some_ of the story of Sir Thomas Sharpe, his sister Lucille, and Allerdale Hall had been explained to him. He had been seven years old.

Thomas climbed from the bed and padded barefoot across the room, running his hands through his light brown hair. He stopped in front of the mirror next to the dressing table. He frowned at his reflection, seeing not himself but Sir Thomas. His hair was much lighter, but the features and eyes were much like his. Shaking his head, he padded barefoot from his room down to the drawing room. His mother had commissioned a portrait of Sir Thomas from the daguerreotype she’d kept, and when it had been completed, she’d had it shipped here to the new Allerdale Hall. His steps took him to the immense cold fireplace that was the centerpiece of one wall where the portrait hung over the mantle.

The frame was made from cherry, shined to a high gloss. A small brass plate at the bottom of the frame said simply, “Sir Thomas Sharpe”. The portrait showed a man in his prime covered in so many layers of clothes it was difficult to tell the build of the man beneath. His mother had told him that his father wasn’t as muscled as Alan or even as he himself was. Sir Thomas was looking off to the side, melancholy on his features and in his sky-blue eyes. His brown nearly black hair was long and brushed his collar.

Thomas stared up at the portrait of the man who was his father by blood. He wondered how different would things have been if this man had lived and raised him instead of Alan McMichael. Would his hands have been soft, as Sir Thomas’s had been? Would they have worked the mines together? Would they have torn down the old house and built anew as his mother had done, or would they rebuild, as his sister Lucille has wanted to do?

He wondered what she had looked like, his aunt Lucille. The only portrait in the house was of his father. The other paintings were of Allerdale Hall and landscapes from around Cumberland. There had been other portraits in the other Allerdale Hall, but his mother had wished them all destroyed. While his father…Alan…had protested, she had had her way, and as far as anyone knew, the paintings were as much dust as the former hall.

There was nothing of New York in the place aside from the money that had been used to build it. Thomas thought of bringing some of his drawings from home. They were mainly sketches of buildings. He seemed to have as much a flair for drawing as he did for tinkering. He wondered what Sir Thomas would think of them.

With one last look at the man who sired him, Thomas turned and headed up to bed.

_Music. A simple melody. The notes from the piano swirled around him. Lyrics in a sweet alto wove among the notes:_

_‘Let the wind blow kindly_  
in the sail of your dreams  
and the moon light your journey  
and bring you to me’

_He could see her…crimson gown…long black hair…her hands glided over the keys, playing that melody over and over…_

_‘Come to me, Thomas,’ the voice beckoned._

Thomas snapped awake, sitting upright in bed. Sitting frozen, he listened, waiting. No music. No singing.

Only a dream, then.

He shoved off the thick cotton blankets, and sat with his legs over the side of the bed. He ran his hands over his face, wincing at the shiver that raced down his spine.  He knew about his mother’s ‘gift’ of being able to see the dead. They’d always thought that it had skipped over him, but now he wondered.

Surely, the raven haired lady had to be a ghost. But what was that song? He’d never heard it before. Why him? But, more than that, _who was she?_

End Part One


End file.
